I'm in favor of relaxed transfer restrictions for players. If coaches can run off players due to their own mistakes in judging talent, why can't players transfer without penalty when they make a mistake in selecting a school?

99 responses to “Question of the day”

They can. They can leave and play right away at an FCS school, or sit out a year and play at another school.

There are plenty of players who ride out their scholarships at a school having never played a meaningful down of football, because they do what’s asked of them from a student athlete perspective. Not saying no coaches have ever once shown a kid the door because he wasn’t good enough, but that’s not happening all over.

High end schools are experiencing 10+ kids a year leaving before graduation. Richt typically was at 9 kids. Some pro. Some for other reasons (academic, trouble, ability and more). The issue is extremely common. Regardless of cause or reason for the turnover it happens.

Every employer on the planet can watch employees leave at anytime. The good ones make people want to stay.

Why should athletes be different?

The coaches can leave. Why can’t the kids when the kids aren’t being paid. It makes no sense.

How is it one? What is taken away? Not the chance to develop their skills, play the game, or get an education. So that want to pout, leave their teammates/school and choose the exact climate campus, dorm, etc. Sounds like a spoiled wannabe to be. And the chaos of unrestricted free agency because of their excessive demands is justified. Makes no sense to me, but I understand it is all just opinions and everyone has one. Just don’t pretend such change isn’t without serious consequences.

He doesn’t have to transfer to D1 school, there are dozens of legit options with no penalty involved. It is the elephant in the room that undermines the entire argument for “poor pitiful athlete”. Can have their cake, eat it, and earn a job in the NFL, no time lost at all.

He can leave and play with no penalty as well, just cannot put himself up to the highest bidder/suitor. And he doesn’t have to. When there is a perfectly fair alternative available, why let them demand where they want to play for selfish reasons when that action can bring down the opportunity foe those that follow? I do not understand why we act like he is being sent to prison for one year. DIdn’t seem to deter Cam, or many others who bounced back in on year. Or even Crowell who was drafted and succeeded out of 1AA…which is a level where many NFL players come from.

I suppose it is in thinking about it some more. I consider it a small one, and more of a clause, but a penalty nonetheless.

I go back to the idea that coaches are just kicking kids off the team and off of scholarship left and right for no other reason than the kid wasn’t as good as they thought he’d be. That is not at all widespread, and I maintain if the kid is showing up on time to practice, working hard, and making grades, the amount of times that’s happening is extremely low.

Bottom line is that nobody is forcing kids to play college football. Yes, a lot of schools make a fortune from their football teams, but that’s also used to support all the other scholarship sports and activities (which is for another discussion).

I still hold to the idea that you sign up to play for a school, get coaching, medicine, exposure, and a free education. Decide that school isn’t for you? Fine. Transfer, but you have to sit out a year. Tough shit. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see kids hurt their situations more in the long run if they’re allowed to transfer almost willy-nilly.

Nobody’s forcing coaches to coach, either. Or for you or me to earn a living, for that matter.

I still hold to the idea that you sign up to play for a school, get coaching, medicine, exposure, and a free education. Decide that school isn’t for you? Fine. Transfer, but you have to sit out a year.

If I were on a full academic ride at a school and decided to change schools, I wouldn’t have to wait a year to get a full scholarship at the new place. Why should student-athletes be treated differently than students?

Oh, and let’s not forget that Baker Mayfield transferred as a walk-on and Texas Tech still tried to hold him hostage at Oklahoma. What’s your idea got to do with that scenario?

Coaches are in a profession, and they also have contracts with buyout clauses and so forth. That’s not a relevant comparison, is it?

Nor is the academic comparison for several reasons. They include a minimum performance requirement, they don’t throw a school into upheaval the way having a few players of a limited 85-man scholarship roster would, either.

Hey, good on Texas Tech for “trying,” but that’s all it was. They tried. If you’re not on scholarship, then of course I don’t think there should be a sit-out year. When coaches offer scholarships to former walk-ons, I assure you it’s not only because “Hey, he’s a good player and he’s earned it.”

Hell, if you don’t want to be “held hostage,” then don’t accept a scholarship. I’m sure Georgia would be fine if Justin Fields decided to forego a scholarship and walk on at Georgia.

My feeling if a student wants to transfer out for what ever reason and had to set out a year then his present School or Coach should have any say in where he/she transfers to. From ALA to AUB or GA to FLA. the student decides for there self where they go. They are Students first sovto transfer for what ever reason the coach should not be envolved in there decession. Just like the Student is not envolved with a coach leaving. Just my thoughts.

Why is it not a penalty to the players on the team that he has been playing on. Especially if he was an important part of that team. The Purdue coach has a valid point as well. Do we really want players taking off because they do not like the needed discipline?

I think the rules should be the same. Kirby Smart walked out on a contract at Alabama to come to UGA. He should have gone to the FCS for a year first. Or, he could come to UGA and serve as a graduate assistant for a year. It’s only fair, right?

You’re wrong about this one my friend. Kids get churned out every year by the dozens because they aren’t deemed good enough, and it happens on every level. More often than not it gets reported that the kid left on his on accord. Either that or they blame it on grades, but don’t be fooled it happens all the time. They shouldn’t have to sit out a year to play at a comparable program, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe most jobs are subject to non compete clauses. I know I’ve never had one that was.

I’d still like to see it penalized for coaches to actively recruit currently enrolled student athletes. You’re going to see the Saban’s of the world pull guys like Bradley Chubb out of NCST (or smaller non-power5 programs) to ride the pine behind other 5 stars. Not to say that Chubb couldn’t or wouldn’t compete – Depth like they have at Bama just seems to swallow special talent some times (#AlvinKamara)

Is your argument that players are too stupid to know what’s good for themselves? Chubb playing at NC State made himself into a top 10 pick in the draft. I doubt he would willingly transfer somewhere to play less.

What is active recruiting? If a player at NCST tells his former high school coach who is now the RB coach at UGA that he is not happy at NCST and would like to be closer to home and that coach says there might be a spot for you at UGA, is that active recruiting? Are we pretending that Bama player that signed at TSU didnt contact anyone at that school about playing football? Or that Eason hasnt talked to people at Washington or whatever school he ends up with.

Its a small world for these top players. Everyone is already talking to everyone else.

Even though
(1) the student-athletes are consenting adults who agree to receive scholarships on the conditions of NCAA rules (including transfer restrictions); and
(2) no athlete is under any obligation to matriculate and can walk away from any school at any time; and
(3) it is not the NCAA’s fault that the NFL uses collegiate football as a de facto minor league; and
(4) it is not the NCAA’s prerogative (legally or practically) to cause the NFL to stop using collegiate football as a de facto minor league; and
(5) the scholarship-for-play/amatuerism model only disfavors the small minority of student-athletes that would have the ability to get a better deal on some free(er) market; and
(6) the creation of said free(er) market has a potential to reduce parity, and team identity, and, thus, long term revenue generation; and
(7) reduction in revenue generation would be bad for student athletes;

Let’s assume for the point of argument from It is obviously unfair for student-athletes to not allow them to transfer if they are buried on the roster because the coach made a mistake in evaluation. Do concerns over fairness to student athletes trump the existential crisis that might be triggered by loosening transfer rulesl? So, either you think (A) the concerns over the unintended consequences (cogently raised in a number of other comments on this blog) are overblown, (B) fairness to the student-athletes is the only priority that matters, or (C) you agree that the powers that be must tread carefully here to avoid stepping on a land mine and blowing up the whole platoon.

If you are in the (A) camp, why do you think the concerns are overblown? Note I did not say “self-serving.” No doubt many concerns are being raised that are self-serving for the people raising them, but just saying they are self-serving is not responsive.

If you are in the (B) camp, that seems short-sighted. It may benefit today’s student-athletes such that there are not any future student-athletes.

I find myself in the (C) camp. I think transfer restrictions should be loosened, but it has to be well thought out. Coaches, players, families, boosters and agents will try to game any system in place. My concern is that, based on past evidence, the NCAA is not so good at thinking things out.

I agree with you about C, but the glorified PE teachers don’t want C either. They want the control to cut whom they want, to restrict the options of those they cut, and to penalize the student-athlete who decides they may benefit from moving on. The law of unintended consequences affects everything in life. Using that to maintain the status quo is ridiculous as well because for everyone who speaks of free agency … I would say it may encourage a school to make a full 4 or 5 commitment to a high school senior.

So, transfers would be more limited for players who have received a scholarship commitment extending beyond the current year? That seems like a reasonable caveat. It would suck for a player like Jacob Eason, as he would have likely received a multi-year commitment.

Put the conditions for transfer into the agreement with the student-athlete. Right now the schools hide behind the NCAA letter of intent and rules (another cartel/monopoly type of activity).

If I’m making a 4/5-year commitment to a particular player, I want to put tight conditions around the ability to exit the contract (transfer). Just as on the other side, as a player, I want specific protections that prevent the institution from early termination.

And both parties would want an amicable dissolution of the contract under these circumstances. Eason would want out to go to Washington. Smart would want to free up Eason’s scholarship to bring in a kid like Fields. Like most voluntary agreements, it’s a win/win.

Dd felt jerked around over scholarship. If Bama had offered and he could have transferred without sitting out, he would have been gone. Of Course maybe Smart would have coughed up the scholarship earlier if a transfer was likely.

Why? The coaches believe that Fromm is better than Eason. Right now, Fields is coming in with the potential to be better than both. With limited scholarships, is it really worth tying Eason up just to keep another school from getting him?

The question isn’t whether it was really worth tying Eason up, it is whether it was worth tying up a scholarship up to have a second experienced QB on the roster. I think that would have been a no brainer for Smart.

I like it. Of course we need to change another rule so that the SA can hire a competent agent or attorney to represent him in that negotiation. That, to me, is one of the most unconscionable rules the NCAA has.

The law of unintended consequences does concern me with this. Suppose student athletes start transferring in large numbers so that the favorite players at UGA one year end up playing at a rival like Auburn the next year. Could that provoke fans to stay home because of the perceived disloyalty of the players? Could that become widespread? I don’t know. But I do know unintended consequences exist. Just look at almost any law passed by the Feds.

Unintended consequences exist in any situation. I’m not blind to it. AT&T thought the break-up of the system would result in unintended consequences to the customer. It ended better for most everyone. We should try something different and see what happens.

“Do concerns over fairness to student athletes trump the existential crisis that might be triggered by loosening transfer rulesl?”

Yes they do. This isn’t as complicated (or dire) as you point out. Doing the right thing for the students involved is way more important than any of our fears & concerns about what this will mean for our team, or the enjoyment we get watching college football. We have no right to limit their personal freedoms for our personal amusement.

For purposes of argument, I am going to roll with your characterization of the student-athletes scholarship agreement as limiting “their personal freedoms for our personal amusement,” and just pretend that the schools force or coerce the students to sign those agreements.

We allow open transfers, anytime/anywhere. After all, these are personal freedoms.

So, Saban undersigns leaving open four scholarships. By the end of spring practice, he knows where the holes are in the roster, and he has had consultants canvassing the country. Over the summer, he cherry picks Vandy’s punter, a TE from Duke, a RS junior WR from Oregon State, and a senior RT from Georgia Southern that has really blossomed in college.

A few days before the season starts, the QBs at Ohio State and Oklahoma State figure out that they are going to get replaced by underclassmen. They transfer to Perdue and Oklahoma respectively, where the expected starting QBs don’t have any game experience.
The second string running back at Penn State finds out that the top two running backs at Notre Dame have injuries, so he transfers. He brings his roommate, the starting safety, just because they are best buds. Alabama decides it doesn’t like its kicker, so it finds a better one (UCLA), this triggers a scramble where 4 kickers move schools.

In week three, Ohio State’s new qB tears his ACL and the cupboard is empty. The QB at Florida takes the opportunity to go play for the real Urban Meyer rather than the fake one at Florida.

A minor scandal erupts when the disgruntled, troublemaking WR at Ole Miss who had just been suspended for four games decides he is tired of being told what to do and transfers to LSU just two weeks before the teams meet on the field.

Every weekend, Lane Kiffen goes on TV on Sunday and says, “Man, if we had a better [insert position here], we would start him right away.” I even left open some scholarships in case this happened.) So far three top Division II upperclassmen have transferred in.

By the end of the regular season, the Team’s media guides are just a joke. There has been a lot of hand-wringing about loyalty to teammates, but everyone seems to agree that most of the transfers were for better playing time or national exposure. Lot’s of ink is spilled over “business decisions” and players looking out for their families. Hard to fault the players for doing what seems to be in their best interest. Josh Rosen concurs.

Then, 3 days before the SEC championship game, Georgia’s third string tight-end transfers to Auburn. They had an open slot because of a transfer out earlier in the year. His high school girlfriend goes to school there, so he wants to take the opportunity. Who can deny love? Of course he has the offensive game plan and shares it with the Auburn coaches.

Over the next few years, ticket sales and viewership decline by 40%. Most of the top power five teams (including Georgia) are doing fine (dominating really), but they can’t get 2,500 people in the gate for a late season match-up between 2-8 Maryland and 3-7 Boston College. Each of those teams has been systematically raided by higher profile schools of any player showing significant promise on film. ESPN cancels minor bowl games. School revenue really starts to dive as TV contracts are renogotiated. Short on revenue, athletics departments start shuttering non-revenue sports programs and selling facilities back to the colleges. Most try to hang on to basketball and football in case things come back. Besides, they will owe the head coaches 10 million anyway.

Nationally, the number of scholarship athletes is down 50%, a loss of nearly 90,000 scholarships. At least the ones that are left have personal freedom.

I think that coaches don’t switch midseason because it would create a stigma that follows them and would damage recruiting. Also, I don’t think that AD’s see a significant advantage to hiring a new guy mid-season over waiting it out. I think that, if it happened a few times without significant blowback, it would become more common.

As for players, you could argue that the same stigma would be there, but I doubt it. The NFL don’t care, and we sure got over players skipping bowl games pretty quick.

Scholarships are one year contracts but the schools retain power over the student athletes after the agreements are over. You may be okay with the NCAA treating them as indentured servants, but you shouldn’t be.

Maybe you didn’t read the initial post, but I have also expressed my opinions here many times over the years. I have been arguing for multi-year scholarships for a long time. Ditto loosening the transfer restrictions. And finding a way to share revenue with the players. And a system that allows players to profit off their likenesses while in school if it can be policed so that it isn’t just boosters paying recruits. But, I think allowing free transfers runs a real chance of destroying college athletics. That’s a far cry from being okay with the NCAA treating SA’s as indentured servants. It’s called nuance. You should look into it sometime.

I agree with your stances on multi-year scholarships, revenue sharing, profiting of their likenesses, and maybe loosening transfer restrictions (depending on what you mean…as I’m for no restrictions).

You believe that would have a real chance of destroying college athletics and while there is a substantial risk of unintentional consequences, you are using more hyperbole than I did calling them indentured servants.

You have no leg to stand on if you justify denying these players the rights every other student is entitled to because you and others may foresee POTENTIAL doom and gloom.

I am in all camps. I have become deaf to concerns after years of seeing coaches and administrators arguing that benefits for athletes would spell the doom of the free world as we know it! We all know what happened to the boy who cried wolf. At this point, I simply assume that Mark Emmert’s stance on amateurism is 100% wrong.

As for camp B, I won’t argue that fairness to athletes is the ONLY thing that matters. But I think it is important. And it should matter much more than it currently does. We can’t stop a coach from skipping out on a contract to take a better deal. We can’t even stop a proven rule breaker like Freeze from taking another job giving him nearly the same power to break rules that he just proved he couldn’t handle. But currently, the rights of those adults matter much more than the rights of the kids.

Also, I’ll argue that the future of NCAA sports should rest on the adults who administer it. If college football collapses tomorrow, I think Mark Emmert shoulders much more blame than Jacob Eason.

And I agree that the NCAA is run by short sighted fools. And any restrictions they install are likely to be circumvented by some and create problems for many. That’s why a freer market will be preferable. Two parties voluntarily agreeing to something is generally better than having a third party disallowing it and forcing them into a suboptimal agreement.

I agree with all of that, but note that this discussion is prompted by the NCAA considering loosening the transfer restriction rules. The NCAA has said for ages that this is all about SA’s while crossing its fingers behind its back. Whether it likes it or not, fairness to SA’s has become a pressure point for the NCAA, and I expect that to continue.

All the “employees” of college athletes have colluded and agreed that if one of them pays they will all have to pay.

The entire NCAA rule book is fundamentally about not paying players. There’s nothing more anti-labor than that.

Kids who want to earn a living playing football are forced to essentially “apprentice” in college. They aren’t there for an education. And the school doesn’t care about their education either. The coaches are paid to win.

The education angle is a distraction from the fact that the kids simply can’t make a buck doing a thing that generates hundreds of millions for others. And they are the only people on campus that way.

Hop on the bus and I will drive you through that loophole. How about allowing the school to require a one-year wait on transfers to any school they will compete against in the next three years? I guess that would suck for Auburn, but otherwise . . .

Your question is actually 1(b) to the obvious and much-discussed 1(a): If coaches can cut and run whenever they’re ready, why can’t players? If coaches were required to fulfill contracts before leaving, I’d be all for making players do the same. And at a minimum, if a school decides it’s time to cut ties with a coach before the end of a contract, then any player recruited under that head coach’s watch, or for whom a coach other than the head coach was primary recruiter, then those players should be offered immediate, unconditional release as well.

Yeesh. Aren’t coaches salaries high enough? They could essentially hold a school hostage.

It’s actually the 1(a) comparison that worries me the most. I know it does not look, smell or taste fair, but allowing the same freedom of movement as coaches (unrestricted, subject only to payout clauses under contracts) is the nuclear option for college sports.

If kids are allowed to transfer at will, wouldn’t it be fair for a coach to be able to pull a player’s scholarship at will? If the players have wide open options on whether to stay or leave without any restrictions, why shouldn’t the coach have the same options if a great player from another program wants to come to his team but he is at the 85 scholarship limit? Let the coach pick some underachieving player out of the pack and tell him “sorry, we need your scholarship for Deandre, you can stay on the team but you have to pay your own way now and those tutors and other perks are gone”. If you want college football to be a true free market, it needs to be free on both sides of the equation.

I keep seeing comments about coaches running off kids because they don’t perform but no one seems to have any specific examples of that happening. I can think of lots of examples of kids who didn’t live up to their hype (Marlon Brown, Crowell, Ramsey, Eason?) but I can’t think of any who were “cut” from the team for not playing well enough. I’m sure if that was a common occurrence some players would be screaming their heads off about it. A coach telling a kid he’s not going to see playing time and might want to consider transferring if he wants to play more isn’t the same as running him off.

The problem is when that coach said you may be better off transferring says that, then restricts the s-a from going where he pleases and forces him to sit out a year or go to an FCS school. That may not be cutting, but the reality is that it is because he tells the kid that with the objective of freeing up a space for another player.

You’re arguing semantics. Coaches understand the PR hit they will take if they openly cull their rosters based on performance. So they get around it. Some coaches encourage kids to “voluntarily” go elsewhere. Some coaches, like Saban, use medical hardships to trim the roster. Amazingly, these kids whose careers ended miraculously heal of their injuries enough to play at North Alabama.

Whatever the case, no coach will admit to running kids off based on athletic performance. That doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

There were no examples, just more conjecture and conspiracy theory. “Some OL” isn’t exactly an example, a name is an example. If kids were being run off, at least some of them would be publicly bitching about it. While willful blindness doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, wishful thinking doesn’t mean it does.

I don’t know any details about McGraw. He might have been about to fail out or was in some sort of trouble. Whatever it was; he didn’t complain about it too much.

Saban giving out a bunch of medical redshirts might be walking the razor’s edge on the rules but it must have been an agreeable solution to the players and Saban. Again, no one ever showed up in an interview disputing their medical condition or complaining.

I haven’t read all the comments above (most of which are pretty extensive – pat yourself on the backs folks!), but as someone who believes the players are currently getting the short end of the stick and deserve some sort of additional compensation and some ability to transfer, making them essentially totally free agents would be very destabilizing for everyone.
Recruiting would really become a 24/7/365 deal, even more so than it is now, as you would not only be recruiting high schools, but other active players; this will lead to even more “tapping up” and will primarily harm smaller/less-competitive schools.
Ideally, once kids sign the LOI, if they go to another school, they should have to sit for 1 year (unless it is down to I-AA), but they don’t lose a year of their eligibility. Schools can block kids from transferring intra-conference or on upcoming schedules (but not to a school where no game is scheduled). If head coach changes, for any reason, kids have a limited period of time following season to transfer without having to sit out a year. I guess keep grad transfers essentially free-agents.
Personally, I think this strikes the right balance between not harming the kids but making a “commitment” count for something….

I think it could be wide open. Have scholarships of 1-4 years available. 5-star kids get the 4-year offer, which restricts their transferring unless both parties agree to dissolve the contract. 3-star kids get a 1-year or 2-year offer that will allow unrestricted transfer after the contract expires. Maybe some of the offers would allow the school to opt to convert it to a 4-year offer, which would lock down the player. A superstar might negotiate a clause that commits the school for four years, but allows him to transfer at any point. I would certainly take Roquan Smith for a year at a time and hope he doesn’t decide to wander off.

There are lots of options that would be fair to both parties. A market free from NCAA bullshit would quickly allow these options to flourish.

Coaches will realize soon enough – or have already realized it and just don’t dare say it out loud – that this makes it easier to send players who aren’t meeting expectations either on or off the field packing.

This will impact basketball a lot more than football, where kids will be able to transfer mid-season and play somewhere else instantly. Start a season at Purdue with 8 mpg, end it at Creighton with 18 mpg. Football requires knowledge of playbooks, calls, et, much more so than hoops.

There are already cautionary tales out there. Remember Blake Barnett, the kid who hightailed it out of Tuscaloosa last Sept. to get an early jump on his sit-out year? He never beat out Manny Wilkins at ASU, and now he’s got Herm Edwards as a head coach. Meanwhile, it’s entirely possible he would have won the starter job back in November when Alabama’s offense went into the toilet and been sitting exactly where Tua is sitting right now.

In other words. this cuts both ways. Coaches and players will both take advantage of expanded freedoms. And coaches who like to run their programs like little fiefdoms will have some ‘splainin’ to do when half their roster starts calling around looking for other immediate landing spots.

Senator, college football is my favorite sport and by golly, these kids having rights will just ruin it. They should not have the freedom to compete on a free market so I can sit at home and watch them on my big screen TV while drinking my beer. Who do they think they are to rob me of this game I love for their so called freedom to engage in commerce? (Tongue planted firmly in cheek.)

Not saying I disagree with no-penalty transfers, but just be ready for what it will result in. A good example is how neighboring city and county football teams are rarely both good at the same time.This is because all of the good players jump ship to whichever program is winning. We could lose our next Roquan to Florida to help them put the finishing touches on their championship team. It will happen.

I’m ready for it. Yeah, losing a Roquan would be awful. But denying them the freedom to transfer like every other student (scholarship or not) is not the answer.

Imagine if we applied this rule to our sons and daughters on academic scholarship, would that be ok? “Sorry, you can’t leave UGA and transfer to Stanford even though they’re offering you more scholarship $$ and offer the major you want to switch to” wouldn’t fly, but because we love CFB it’s ok?

By supporting the status quo, we abet rich people treating 18-23 year olds like second class citizens to protect their teams – I don’t believe for a second any of them are doing it to save the “game” – and their salaries.

Forgive me if this has already been answered here, but could Roquan Smith, since he never signed a national LOI, have transferred, penalty free to any school he wanted OR, since he was on scholarship, does that trump all else?

This thing about tying transfer restrictions to scholarship term is just the NFL CBA and free agency by another name. That may be a good thing, or it may be awful, but that is exactly what it is. If we are going to do that, collective bargaining practically has to be next.

The problem is that students pass through college too quickly to have a lasting interest in the system. The only long term participants are the schools and coaches, so the system tilts to their interests. Plus the schools and coaches are well-represented adults instead of 18-24 year olds. No wonder the kids get the short end. Schools are management. Coaches are labor. Kids are just the raw materials.

I’ll admit I’ve only read about half the comments above, so please forgive me if I’m overlooking something, but one thing I think is lost in the transfer talks is that coaches/schools can’t actually restrict where a kid transfers to. Instead, what they restrict is where a kid can receive financial aid from.

A: Coaches can’t tell a student-athlete when or where he or she can transfer. Student-athletes are allowed to transfer at any time if they believe it is in their best interest to attend a different school.

However, in order to receive an athletics scholarship at another school, a student-athlete must receive permission to contact another school, in writing, from the initial school. This rule applies to all student-athletes, whether or not they are on scholarship at the initial school.”

It effectively accomplishes the same thing but is even worse in my opinion. If the emphasis is supposed to be on the student part of student-athlete, then why should they face a penalty that no other student would?

Because they are “student” athletes (supposedly) , and if College football moves any further away from this supposed “fact” it will die from too much professionalism.
As such, they should pick the school over the coaching staff.

Quote Of The Day

“But outside of that, the biggest advantage you can have is have good leadership, have a veteran football team, and when you’ve got that, it doesn’t matter whether you have spring practice or not. When you don’t have that, it’s tougher, when you don’t have leadership and you don’t have the experience at certain positions.”— Kirby Smart, Dawgs247, 3/31/20